by Barry Eisler
The woman chose the second of her two bad options. As her body arced past Livia’s extended hip, Livia ripped the Glock in the opposite direction, breaking the woman’s grip. The woman slammed into the ground. Livia took a long step back, pointed the muzzle at the woman’s torso, and, blinking furiously against the fire in her eyes, rasped, “Do not move!”
The woman rolled to her stomach. Livia’s eyes were burning horribly now and she couldn’t see the woman’s hands. In desperation and counter to her training, she jammed a palm against her temple and shoved the skin high to get an eye open. The burning intensified. She tried to get out another command and managed no more than a choking gag. Through a blur of fiery tears she saw the woman bring her knees in, and remembered the athletic ease with which she’d stood from the bench.
She pressed the trigger of the Glock six times, aiming for center mass, not able to see details beyond that. The woman screamed and fell to her side. Livia circled left, toward the woman’s feet. She jammed a palm against the ridge over her eye again and for an instant could see that the woman wasn’t moving. Then her vision filmed over in another flare of agonizing heat.
Coughing and gagging and barely able to see, she retraced her steps to the back door. She remembered her academy training: Pepper spray hurts like shit, but it won’t harm you. Don’t wipe it—wiping only opens the capillaries and makes it hurt worse. Still, the urge to try to clear her eyes was almost overwhelming. Because of the pain, of course, but also because there might be other attackers and not being able to see was terrifying. She kept her gun hand pinned to her chest at modified low-ready, her free hand forward, fingers splayed, protecting the Glock and ready to come to grips with anyone who rushed her. Of course, if there was another gun in play, they wouldn’t risk getting that close.
You’re okay. The woman was intended as just a setup, at least initially. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been using pepper spray. She wouldn’t have rushed you. She, or a third attacker, would have had a gun. And you’d be dead already.
The thought wasn’t as comforting as she would have liked. But it was something.
She managed to get her keys in the lock, made it inside, and closed the door behind her. She heard sirens—someone must have called in the gunshots. Good timing. She didn’t want to be staggering around with a gun in her hand, gagging and coughing and unable to speak, when the responding officers showed up to a call-in of shots fired.
She squatted, put the backpack on the floor, unzipped it, and felt around inside. There, the first-aid kit. Patrol cops carried them routinely. Detectives often fell out of the habit, but if Livia ever died in a gunfight, it wasn’t going to be because she thought hemostatic bandages and a tourniquet were too heavy to bother with.
She unzipped the kit and groped around until she felt what she needed—Sudecon, a commercial pepper-spray antidote. She tore the package open with her teeth and blotted her burning eyes. Almost immediately, the pain became more tolerable. She did her nose and mouth and tongue, too, careful only to blot, resisting the urge to wipe, which would rub the capsicum irritant more deeply into her skin and capillaries.
She got out her cellphone and speed-dialed SPD to call in the officer-involved shooting. She gave her name and badge number, the address, and a description of what had happened. She was pretty sure there were no more bad guys in the area, she told them. But obviously the responding officers should be alert regardless.
The call made, the sounds of sirens close now, she realized she was safe. And simultaneously realized she had just come within about an inch of dying. Immediately she got the shakes. It wasn’t her first time, of course. But those other times, she hadn’t been in cop mode. She’d been hunting. It was different.
If something about the woman hadn’t made you suspicious.
If he’d had his gun up, rather than along his leg.
If you hadn’t been wearing the Huxleys.
If there had been one more person in the team.
No. You did everything right. You spotted it. You listened to your gut. You were tactical. You won. You WON. They’re dead. You’re not. You made it, girl. You made it. How many times have you told your victims to celebrate that? Are you full of shit, or is that advice for real?
That made her feel better. The shakes subsided—a little.
Okay, so what the fuck was that? Who were they?
A thought immediately blossomed in her mind: Child’s Play.
It seemed crazy. But she knew to trust those cop hunches. First answer, right answer, more often than not.
Come on. The op got shut down this morning. This thing was in the works from long before that.
The op just got shut down. The decision to shut it down happened . . . you don’t know when. The plan to take you out could have been formulated beforehand.
It felt paranoid. But there it was again—that gut feeling and the urge to dismiss it, the thing she was constantly warning her students about.
She decided she ought to at least warn Trahan. He was in the air now, from what Agent Smith had said, but she’d call him as soon as he landed.
The main thing was, the immediate threat was dead now. Or at least gone. That much was reasonably certain.
What she needed to know now was who was behind them. And why.
chapter
ten
LIVIA
An hour after Livia had put the call in, the scene was crawling with members of the department’s Force Investigation Team. The watch commander. The night-duty captain. A homicide detective. Internal Affairs. CSI. The county prosecutor. A representative from the Department of Justice monitoring team. And an SPD Guild lawyer. An officer-involved shooting was a shit show under any circumstances, but SPD was still operating under a settlement agreement following a DOJ finding of a pattern of excessive force, and the department had learned to be exceptionally careful about both the substance and the appearance of a thorough, impartial investigation. Which was a good thing, obviously, but that didn’t mean any individual cop welcomed being subjected to it.
She answered a set of routine public-safety questions from a patrol sergeant while responding officers worked to secure the scene. Was this your duty weapon? Were you qualified with this weapon? Do you know how many rounds you fired? How many hits? What was your backstop? Did anyone else fire a weapon? The questions from the homicide investigator and IA were more pointed. Did you know the deceased? Had you ever met or seen them before? At what point did you come to believe your life was in danger? Why did you believe you needed to fire ten times—four to the man, six to the woman?
A lot of the questions felt like second-guessing, but Livia knew the media would be asking plenty more regardless, so as unpleasant as it all was, it was better to have everything pressure checked and by the book now. At least the SPD Guild lawyer was there to help her, though most of his advice—You weren’t trying to kill them, you were trying to stop them; make sure your subjective impressions of danger are reasonable and objectively articulable—she didn’t need. The FIT team took possession of her duty weapon. She knew it was routine, but still, having to surrender the Glock left her feeling both violated and vulnerable.
She had gone inside to take a break from it all and was sitting at the edge of the mats when a woman in jeans and a windbreaker walked in. It took Livia a second to recognize her—Lieutenant Strangeland, who Livia had almost never seen out of uniform.
Livia stood, feeling weirdly awkward. “LT. What are you doing here?”
Strangeland paused and looked at her. “You gotta be kidding me, Livia. Are you all right?”
Livia nodded, half-amused at the incongruity of the tough Brooklyn accent and the tender tone, half-embarrassed by the obvious concern. “I’m fine.”
Strangeland shook her head, not buying it. “Jesus God almighty,” she said, walking over. “Come here.” She put her arms around Livia and pulled her close. Strangeland was known for being standoffish, and Livia had never seen her give anyone more tha
n a handshake or maybe a pat on the back. And everyone knew Livia didn’t like to be touched off the mat. For an instant, Livia stiffened. Then she felt emotion welling up inside her.
“Come on, LT,” she said, her voice cracking. “I told you, I’m fine.” To explain the quaver, she added, “Maybe just a little shaken up.”
Strangeland released her and took a step back, but held on to Livia’s shoulders for a moment, looking at her. The naked concern in Strangeland’s eyes was too much, and Livia had to glance away. It had been like this ever since the men had taken her and Nason. She had hardened herself so well to cruelty. But for whatever reason, even all these years later, kindness could undo her. And especially now, it seemed, when the sole friend she’d had on the scene was the SPD Guild guy who was only there to do his job.
“They take your gun?”
Livia nodded.
Strangeland reached into her bag and retrieved a Glock. “The 26, right?” She extended it butt forward.
Livia tried to say something, but couldn’t. Goddamn it, she wasn’t going to cry in front of the lieutenant. She wasn’t. She looked away.
Strangeland said, “Pepper spray’s a bitch. You used the Sudecon?”
Naturally, the lieutenant’s compassion made it worse. But it was so obvious a ploy that it was also funny. Livia wiped the tears quickly with the back of a hand and nodded.
“It’s okay. You know the drill. An officer-involved shooting, the duty weapon becomes part of an investigation. But that doesn’t mean the cop goes unarmed. Take it, girl. A lot of people are going to be watching this thing closely. And every one of us has got your back.”
Livia nodded again and blew out a long breath. She took the gun, checked the load, and slid it into the bellyband holster. Instantly she felt more in control.
She cleared her throat. “Thanks, LT. I guess I needed that.”
“Understandable. And anything else you need, you damn well better tell me. You got it?”
Livia nodded.
“No. I want to hear you say it.”
“If I need anything, I’ll tell you.”
“Good. I don’t want to see any of your lone-wolf routine on this, okay? Surviving a shooting is harder than you think. I’m not just talking about the investigation. Or the media. I’m talking about your feelings. Which, yeah, I know you pretend not to have any, but that’s as much bullshit when you do it as it is when I do.”
Livia gave her a small smile.
“What?”
“I promise not to tell anyone you have feelings.”
Strangeland laughed. “Yeah, you better not. They wouldn’t believe you anyway.”
“You know, LT, I think this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”
Strangeland laughed again. “I talk when I worry. And I worry about you, Livia. Don’t underestimate this. The aftermath. You’re going to be on administrative leave—”
“Administrative leave? I can’t, I’ve got the park rapist, I’ve got—”
“Forget it. The leave is mandatory, it’s not in any way my call. And you’ll be required to meet with a psychologist, too. Just procedure, it’s nothing about you. I’m not even going to waste my breath advising you to be open with the shrink. I just want you to be open with me. If you need to be. If it helps.”
The thought of going after the park rapist with one arm tied behind her back—and right after the Child’s Play op shutdown, too—made Livia want to scream. If she couldn’t stop him, if someone else were attacked . . .
She knew it was all bound up in her inability to protect Nason. In her lingering sense that what had happened to Nason had been Livia’s fault. But knowing it, and knowing the belief was neither reasonable nor logical, didn’t seem to help much. The feeling itself just . . . persisted. Every day, one way or the other.
Fuck it. She’d figure something out. A way to keep working the park rapist. To stop him.
Right. That’s right. Be smart. Stay calm.
She nodded and said, “Okay.”
“Well, that’s not exactly a promise, but I guess it’s as close as we’re likely to get.”
The FIT homicide detective walked in—a stocky white guy, about forty, brown hair swept back, and a porn ’stache circa 1970. What was his name again? Phelps, that was it. The FIT people were decentralized, operating at the Airport Way Center, separate from headquarters, and Livia hadn’t met him before tonight, though she knew the name. “Detective Lone,” he said. “I was looking for you. Some follow-up questions.”
“Hiya, Phil,” Strangeland said. “Give us ladies a few minutes, okay?”
“Hey, Donna. Look, you know the more efficiently I take care of business, the better it’ll be for everyone. IA, county prosecutor, DOJ . . . gonna be a lot of eyes on this.”
“I get that. Just a few minutes, okay?”
Phelps nodded and headed back out. Livia was surprised—he was with FIT, so it was his crime scene. “That was good of him,” she said.
“Yeah, he’s not a dick. And he’s right about the efficiency. But a few minutes won’t make a difference. Now tell me what the fuck happened here tonight.”
They sat at the edge of the mats and Livia filled her in. If she’d been a civilian witness, Strangeland would have had to steer the interview to ensure she was getting productive details. But Livia kept it relevant.
When she was done, Strangeland said, “Sounds like about as righteous a shoot as I can imagine. And you’re articulating it exactly right. This was clearly a team; they attacked you; they refused clear verbal commands; you were blinded and choking and fighting to retain your weapon. The media’s going to be asking why you fired so many rounds, and why you didn’t just use your jiu-jitsu or shoot them in the hands and feet and all that shit, but that’s just theater, none of it will stick. They’ll make a little more hay out of the excessive-force complaints in your record, but they’re all from long ago and none of them has ever been substantiated, and coming from the scumbags in question, the allegations aren’t exactly credible.”
Livia wondered whether Strangeland thought the allegations were true. If so, the lieutenant knew better than to ask.
“There’s a video camera over the back door,” Strangeland went on. “If it didn’t pick up any of the action, nothing lost. If it did, I assume it will corroborate your story. So the one thing I’m not particularly worried about here is FIT concluding anything other than that this was righteous self-defense. That’s what matters. The media bullshit is just a sideshow.”
The way she phrased it raised more questions than it answered. “What are you worried about, LT?”
“Number one, what we already talked about. The aftermath.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, you always make me nervous when you say that. But I suppose so far it’s been true.”
“What’s number two?”
“Number two is, Who are the people who tried to have you killed you tonight? And are they going to try again?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I’m asking you, Livia. Who are they?”
“I don’t know, LT.”
“I know you have enemies. Every rapist and child molester scumbag you’ve ever put away who pleads down or gets early release or whatever. But from what you’ve described, from what I can see, this attempt on you was more professional than that.”
“I had the same thought. Though some of those scumbags were gang members. Or rich enough to buy professionalism.”
“So you like, what, Hammerhead for tonight?”
Hammerhead was a white-supremacist gang Livia had been investigating—more deeply than the lieutenant knew—a year before. This didn’t feel like their work. And Strangeland’s question felt like a feint to her. If Livia bit, Strangeland would think she was bullshitting. And therefore hiding something.
The problem was, she was hiding something. This might not have been Hammerhead, but Hammerhead led to Senator Lone, and Rithisak Sorm, the child-trafficking kingpin. S
he’d killed both of them in Bangkok, along with a string of their accomplices. Payback for that? Okay, but by whom? And whatever theories she might develop, she couldn’t share them with the lieutenant.
“Not really,” Livia said. “I mean, I wouldn’t rule it out at this point. But . . . no.”
“Then who?”
She thought of Child’s Play again. It still felt crazy. But the thought was persistent. Which usually indicated something real was behind it. And anyway, it was something to give the lieutenant that wasn’t connected to Bangkok.
“The Child’s Play task force,” she said.
“What about it?”
“Just . . . the timing. I mean, Agent Smith shows up this morning and pulls the plug just like that. And however the decision got made, like you said, they never informed anyone, never explained . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s all just a coincidence, but it feels weird.”
“You think the Child’s Play op got too close to a child-porn ring in the Secret Service, and someone decided to whack you to shut you up?”
“Well, it sounds far-fetched when you say it like that.”
“But you’re not saying no.”
“You asked me what I think. I think it’s a weird coincidence. Maybe it’s nothing, but I’m still going to warn Terry Trahan. The contract hacker they paired me with. I mean, not to jump to crazy conspiracy theories, but if someone wanted to tie off loose ends, he’s at least as much one as I am. He developed the encryption app those Child’s Play members were using. And someone at the Bureau shut the whole thing down right after Trahan alerted his supervisor.”
“They’re on a plane now, you said.”
“Red-eye to DC, yes.”
“Yeah, it all sounds crazy, and maybe we’ll come up with something more likely. But . . . I’ll find out what flight. Make sure you call your boy Trahan when he lands. And I want to talk to this Agent Smith. The captain wants to go through channels, but it was bullshit, her telling one of my officers what she can or can’t work on without it going through me.”